California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law Wednesday that will allow nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform early abortions, a move that's drawing strong condemnation from conservatives.

The bill by Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, would let those professionals perform what are known as aspiration abortions during the first trimester, according to The Associated Press. The method involves inserting a tube and using suction to terminate a pregnancy.

Supporters, including Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said expanding the ranks of those who can perform early abortions would provide better health care for women.

"Timely access to reproductive health services is critical to women's health," Atkins said in a statement Wednesday. "AB154 will ensure that no woman has to travel excessively long distances or wait for long periods in order to obtain an early abortion."

Brown announced his approval of the bill along with several others related to women's health care. His signature on AB154, which goes into effect Jan. 1, came as other states have been restricting access to abortions.

Republican lawmakers who opposed the legislation argued that allowing nondoctors to perform aspiration abortions would increase risks to patients. They expressed concerns that those medical professional would lack training and assistance from experienced physicians.

"It's truly disheartening and disingenuous that Governor Brown and legislative Democrats created a law to lower the standard of care for the women under the guise of creating 'access,'" Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, said in a statement Wednesday.

The California Catholic Conference, which represents bishops throughout the state, said the law will create a two-tiered health system, separating those who can afford physicians and hospitals for abortion procedures from those who cannot.

"The often repeated mantra of those supporting (abortion) rights is that abortions ought to be safe, legal, and rare," the conference's president, the Rev. Gerald Wilkerson of Los Angeles, said in a statement. "With this change in California's law, abortions are merely legal — no longer safe and ... rare."

He also reiterated the church's opposition to abortion and any laws that seek to expand it.

The bill signed by Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student, requires nondoctors seeking to perform abortions to receive special training and follow standard procedures.

Under a state pilot program created in 2007, 8,000 aspiration abortions already have been provided by nondoctors in California. Data from the University of California, San Francisco program showed doctors and nondoctors performing the procedures with complication rates below 2 percent.

The researchers wrote in a January article in the American Journal of Public Health that the findings support broadening who can perform early aspiration abortions. They added that such a change would likely allow for abortions to be performed sooner, "significantly decreasing the overall risk of complications, which increases with gestational age."

Tracy Weitz, an associate professor at UCSF and lead author on the study, said in an interview that the lack of access to abortion services is most common in places that generally have fewer health care services, such as rural areas.

Access issues also can be found in urban areas such as Los Angeles County, where communities can be underserved because it is difficult to get to a provider located in another part of the county, she said.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law Wednesday that will allow nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physician assistants to perform early abortions, a move that's drawing strong condemnation from conservatives.